Pale morning light broke through the jagged river cliffs of Riverbend Way, illuminating the thick gray smoke drifting from the mouth of the hidden limestone cavern.
Inside the subterranean complex, the silence was suffocating, broken only by the steady drip of cold water leaking through fractured ceiling stones.
Senior Brother Bai stepped past the shattered timber barricade at the entrance, his boots sinking into damp mud mixed with greasy black soot. Six armed enforcers followed behind him in tight formation, their lanterns casting long, trembling beams across the devastation of the processing floor.
Bai paused before the ruined smelting vats, his hand resting on the hilt of his heavy law broadsword as he surveyed the c*****e.
The four industrial furnaces had not merely exploded outwa
